The Talking Eggs is a book by Robert D. San Souci and illustrated by
Jerry Pinkney. It is a Creole take on
the Cinderella story and offers many jumping points for fun, tie-in activities
both literary and otherwise. You can use
this story to begin an exploration of Creole culture or compare this to other
Cinderella stories from around the world.
Use language skills to recognize similes in the story and create some of
your own. Learn about estimation,
hypotheses, and the science of sound while playing with eggs or create some
beautiful artwork.
Most of these
activities can be done at any age, with adult guidance.
The Projects
Materials needed for
the project include a copy of The Talking
Eggs, copies of other types of Cinderella stories, hard-boiled eggs or
emptied egg shells, markers or paints/egg dyes, hard-boiled egg, regular egg,
bowl of vinegar, bowl of water, and plastic eggs filled with things like coins,
rice, beans, buttons, cotton balls, paper, etc.
Begin by reading the
story. Talk about how it compares with
the Cinderella story most familiar to the kids, which is probably the Disney
version. What is similar in these stories? What is different? Most Cinderella stories include an evil
stepmother and stepsisters, a dead mother, a dead father or a father who is
poor at his job, a protagonist forced to do most of the work around the house
to care for the family and a mutual attraction with a person of high status. Not all of these need to be met to be
classified as a Cinderella story. Even
Harry Potter has elements of this idea, with dead parents and a boy forced to
live in a sad, tiny room with very little of his own while his cousin is
spoiled. Explore some other Cinderella
stories from around the world and look for common elements. Explore cultural differences. What do you think the lesson is in these
stories? Some good places to start are:
Note to parents: Read
through the stories you find before you share them with your children. In some stories Cinderella runs away because
her father is inappropriate with her and in other stories the “prince” physically
or emotionally abuses “Cinderella” when she is dressed in rags and acting as a
serving girl. The stories from the sites
above do not include these interpretations, but other searches may bring those
stories up.
The Talking Eggs uses some excellent examples of similes and
metaphors. Use the information below to
talk about what these are and hunt for some in the book.
The Talking Eggs is a Creole version of a Cinderella story. Learn a little bit about the Creole
culture. Can you see any examples of
this in the story?
Although most eggs
don’t talk, some can make them make noise.
Fill some plastic eggs with various things. Some of them should make noise like beans and
buttons, some should be quieter like cotton balls and paper. See if your children can identify what’s
inside the eggs and if there is a lot of the item or a little. If they are interested, you can demonstrate
how the sound travels through the air by dropping items into a bowl of
water. Sound travels in waves, just like
those you created in the bowl.
What else can we learn
from eggs? Well, how can you tell the
difference between a hard-boiled egg and an uncooked egg? Look at one of each to see what you can
learn. Feel them. Can you guess which is which? Try spinning them, then touch them to make
them stop. The hard-boiled egg should
stop easily, but the uncooked egg will want to keep moving as the liquid
sloshes inside. Other fun egg
experiments include trying to break the egg with two fingers, starting from the
top to bottom and then trying from the sides. How difficult is it to break the egg without
hitting it? How difficult is it
squeezing in different locations? Or try
soaking the eggs in vinegar and watch as the acidic vinegar eats away at the
calcium carbonate in the shell. If you
leave the eggs for about two days, until the shell is entirely gone, the egg
will bounce a bit, but remember not to bounce it too hard as it still is an
egg.
Lastly, many people
paint eggs for Easter, but that is not the only reason to have beautiful eggs
like the ones in the story. You can use
cleaned out egg shells if you want to keep your eggs for longer or hard-boiled
eggs for short term. To clean out an egg
shell, use a needle to make a hole in each end of the egg. Use the needle to try to break up some of the
yolk and whites in the egg. Carefully blow through the hole at the other
end. Go back and forth between breaking
up the egg’s insides and blowing until you think most of the liquid is gone. Carefully run some water through the egg and
gently shake this out. Then allow the
egg to dry. Try not to get any of the
raw egg in your mouth for safety. Once
the eggs are dry, you can use the same dyes you would for Easter eggs, can
color them with markers or paint them.
Or you can use natural dyes like flowers, onion skins, coffee grounds,
etc.
Some
Information to Share
Similes and metaphors
Similes and metaphors
are both similar ways to provide imagery to your sentences. They paint a different picture than simply
saying that the basket is red. The
sentence “The basket is red as an apple” gives the reader a vivid image. This example sentence is a simile, which is a
comparison using LIKE or AS. Metaphors
also compare two things, but does so more directly by skipping the words LIKE
or AS. “The desk is a soldier standing
tall” is an example.
Creole
culture
Creole is the term for
descendants of the French, Spanish, or Portuguese settlers living in Louisiana,
the West Indies and Latin America. The
color of one’s skin didn’t matter.
French customs tended to prevail, especially as the English settlers
began to move into the area. The French
Opera House and dances like cotillions were popular, as the Creoles loved
music. The French language played a
large part, although it often blended with English as others moved in. Many Creoles considered themselves Roman
Catholic. One of the biggest
distinguishing features of Creole homes is Creole cooking. A Creole meal is a celebration, and features
a combination of European, Native American, and African influences. Sweet potatoes, okra, and file often play a
role in their dishes. They enjoy teas,
lemonade, coffees and desserts like tea cakes, galets, and pralines. The most famous Creole dishes however are
typically thought to be gumbos, dirty rice, and jambalayas.
Scientific
Method
The scientific method
is a problem solving technique, a way to answer questions, a method to study
the world, and a test of whether a statement is true. Although the steps may change in order from
person to person and from situation to situation, the steps usually stay the
same. You should begin by asking
questions, making observations, and doing research. Observing the world around you will help you
come up with questions like “Why do cats and dogs have fur?” or “Which ball
will hit the ground first?” You can do
research to see what other people have to say and study other situations, like
studying other animals that have hair or other items dropping. Secondly, use your observations and research
to create a hypothesis, an idea you are able to test. It should answer your original question, but
might not be the right answer. That’s
why you are going to put it to the test.
The test is the next step, called an experiment. You’re not done making observations
though. Make observations and record
what happens in your experiment.
This work should help you remember what happens and allow future
scientists to compare your work and theirs.
Use the observations to come to a conclusion. Was your hypothesis correct? Why or why not? What new questions do these conclusions lead
to? Finally, share your work so
that others can explore what you’ve learned.
Sound
Waves
Have you ever thrown a
stone into water and watched as the waves spread out? Or played with a Slinky, watching as the
coils grow closer and further apart?
This is like sound. For example,
imagine someone knocking on a door. If
we could look really close, we could see the molecules in the door
vibrate. They knock into their neighbors
which begin to vibrate. The vibration of
the door causes the air molecules to vibrate.
Eventually those vibrations will reach your ear and your brain can
convert the vibrations into sound. All
these different types of matter affect the speed of the sound wave, or
vibration. Since solid molecules are
closer together, the sound moves faster.
Also since sound requires matter, there isn’t sound in space because of
the lack of molecules to vibrate.
Eggs
Most of the time when
we think of eggs, we think of chicken eggs but many animals lay eggs from
dinosaurs to birds, from reptiles to fish and even the duck-billed
platypus. Most eggs have some sort of
covering that allows air and water to pass through but helps protect the
growing animal. Chicken eggs have a
shell made of calcium carbonate, which is the same thing coral skeletons and
antacids are made from. The egg white is
mostly albumen, and if there were a baby chicken inside, this would be the food
it could eat while it’s growing. The
albumen has all sorts of vitamins and minerals in it that are good for you or
the baby chick. The yolk is where the
baby chicken would grow from. There is
also usually an air pocket at the large end.
White and brown are not the only color of egg, although they are the
ones we are most familiar with. Hens are
known to lay eggs in pink, green and blue too.
The egg can tell you how fresh it is.
Old eggs float in boiling water while fresh eggs hang at the
bottom. Or you can look at the egg white
to tell how fresh it is. If the egg
white is clear, the egg is very fresh while cloudy egg whites mean the egg is
starting to age. If your egg white is
pink or iridescent, don’t eat that egg.
It has gone bad.
Faberge
eggs
Faberge eggs are
elaborate Easter eggs created by the Russian goldsmith Faberge. The most well-known and valuable tend to be
the ones created for the Russian Imperial family. These eggs were made almost yearly between
1885 and 1916. There were a few years when
Russia was at war that it was difficult to create the eggs. The tradition began when Tsar Alexander III
decided he wanted to give his wife an extra special Easter present. His wife had enjoyed an egg owned by her
aunt, so the Tsar turned to Faberge to create a special egg for the
Empress. The first egg is known as the
Hen Egg, and opened to reveal a golden yolk which in turn opened to reveal a
small gold hen. The hen also opened and
inside was a diamond replica of the Imperial Crown. She was so impressed, Alexander III decided
to commission Faberge to create a new egg each year. He left Faberge to design the details, but
required that there be a surprise in each egg.
The eggs were very intricate and often took more than a year to
create. Faberge often looked to
important events in Russian history and the family life for inspiration. The most expensive is the Winter Egg of 1913
and has diamond snowflakes. After
Alexander III died, his son took up the tradition, continuing to have an egg
created for his mom and his wife. The
Russian Revolution brought an end to the tradition. Of the fifty Imperial Faberge eggs, 42 have
survived. Recently, another egg appeared
at a flea market and was purchased by a scrap dealer who did not recognize it,
but thought the gold and gems might be worth something. He eventually turned to the internet and
discovered the purchase to be worth $33 million.
Bibiliography
The Talking Eggs
by Robert D. San Souci
Fairy Tales
by Jeanne King
Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal by Paul Fleischman
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/11434818/Faberge-eggs-all-you-need-to-know.html
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